The heart of Beethoven / Selden Rodman, James Kearns.
| Author/creator | Rodman, Selden |
| Other author | Kearns, James, 1924- |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | New York : Shorewood Pub. Co., [1962] |
| Description | 157 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | Overture. Three Beethovens ; Music as therapy ; "In my end is my beginning" -- Part I. From Bonn to Heiligenstadt (1770-1802). The sound of bells ; Growing up in Bonn ; Eve of departure ; First days in Vienna ; Early triumphs ; The sound of silence -- Part II. The years of triumph (1803-1812). On the brink ; Eroica ; Appassionata ; Fidelio ; The "Immortal beloved" ; Patrons and publishers ; Goethe face to face ; Humor - and Shakespeare ; The limits of sensuous experience -- Part III. Darkness and the illumined night (1814-1827). Dialogue - the lapse ; The infertile years ; "A terrible beauty is born" ; Dirt and disorder ; Contradictions ; The love that failed ; The mass and the ninth symphony ; "Men of noble mind" ; Beethoven's God ; Variations and reverberations ; Crisis ; Death -- Coda. "Bright things of heaven" ; The last quartets ; "Disembodied, triumphant". |
| Abstract | Beethoven's life, more dramatically than any other of mankind's major poets, was the source of his art. As a young man he lived the rebellious emotionalism of the Romantic movement, and gave first full expression to it. In his mature years such triumphant works as the third, fifth, and seventh symphonies - still, after 150 years, the world's most "popular" music - bodied forth his personal interpretation of the French Revolution: its release of faith in the individual's capacity to shape his destiny. Deaf and on the threshold of death, Beethoven carried art finally into depths of subjective perception not plumbed by other artists. The composer's life has been examined and related to his art before; but not in two decades, nor as succinctly and with as successful and resolution of the "enigma" presented by noble ideals apparently scuttled in daily performance. The raw materials of this fierce struggle, scattered in a dozen compendiums of diaries, sketchbooks, interviews, conversations and letters, are here assembled in a veritable anthology of genius-at-work. For the first time, we believe, this tragic but inspiring story has been given visual continuity by a graphic artist capable of sustaining its burden with technical master as well as imagination. |
| LCCN | 61015486 |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Music | Closed Stacks - Ask at Circulation Desk | ML410.B4 R53 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |